The Church of Christ… what’s in a name?
by LewisI was playing golf a few weeks ago with a new friend who is a long time Christian and, at 83, a man with no small amount of wisdom. He knew that I was the minister at the Palo Alto Church of Christ, and as we walked down the 9th fairway he asked me a question.
“How are you doing with one of your brother ministers being so much in the news and so controversial?”
I hesitated for a few seconds while my mind tried to interpret the question, and then I got it. He was asking me about Jeremiah Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ. And why shouldn’t he? Both churches use the name Church of Christ, and to anyone who is not familiar with either of these churches, the names would seem to indicate that they hold many things in common.
My friend, being who he is, knew that the likelihood of our churches being affiliated with one another was remote at best, but his question made me wonder if anyone else might have made that link. Do people in the neighborhood of PACC think that we are part of the same movement that defines Trinity United?
I mostly forgot about that possible link until this past week when I received a phone call at the church. The nice lady on the other end of the line wanted directions to our church from Monterey, because she was coming to a memorial service. I did give her directions but then asked if she was certain the service was going to be at our church. She said she got our number from information, and then she read the notice about the service which said it would be held at The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints on Middlefield Road in Palo Alto.
The names are similar, but the churches are not the same. How much does the world view us by our name, and what’s in a name?
Tags: Christ, church, Jeremiah Wright, LDS, Mormon, Palo Alto, Trinity
April 28th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
I think we should call ourselves “The Way.” I don’t know that it’s taken and it seems to be how the 1st century Christians referred to what they were doing.
Good provocative post.
April 29th, 2008 at 9:45 am
I think the terminology is a real problem. For insiders the terminology seems obvious. But to the average citizen the distinctions are too subtle to be helpful.
The notion of naming a church something particular and personal, much as you would name a person, has a great appeal to me. It bothers me a lot that Church of Christ can be mistaken for Disciples of Christ, International Church of Christ, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and so on. Just these four groups bear some radical differences in terms of approach, theology, sources of inspiration, use of power in the leadership, characterization in the news, and so on. But if we want Christians in the know to identify a congregation within a particular tradition, we might not want to abandon our label.
“Church of Christ” actually means something, indicating a stream of history, a general theological bent, and some interesting quirks. So if a person visiting or moving to a new town wanted to stay in the same CoC tradition, she might first feel more comfortable checking out the churches designated “Church of Christ.” However, some visitors become annoyed when the CoC they wander into may look quite different from what they are used to. (The same could be said for just about any named religious tradition (aka “denomination”).)
There’s a church in Redwood City that did about as good a job as is possible in embracing a more personal name while retaining the label —
Redwood Church: A Non-Denominational Church of Christ.
Personally, I like to look beyond the label, no matter what it is, to see the how accurately a given congregation reflects the heart of God. It is in that state of appreciation for all things truly Christ-like that we can find unity among all of God’s children, regardless of the label of the church where they worship.
May 5th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Hmmm… I never thought of naming a church “Bob” or “Sue” or “Larry Boy,” but I kind of like it.
Here’s a great (and true) story about a Catholic church in suburban Chicago. The parish was founded in 1974, and the founding pastor (I really wanted to say “founding father”
), Fr. George Kane, wanted to call it “The Church of the Holy Spirit.” He was not surprised to meet some resistance to that, with the hierarchy explaining that people wouldn’t know it was a Catholic church with a name like that rather than St. Something-or-Other.
He appealed as high as he could, which (as I recall) was to the Cardinal in Chicago, Cardinal Cody. Whoever that final decision maker was, he gave Fr. Kane this edict: “Give me three choices, and I will select one of them.”
So Fr. Kane brought back three choices, two of which were clearly Catholic: First Catholic Church of Hoffman Estates; The Catholic Church on Bode Road; and The Church of the Holy Spirit. And The Church of the Holy Spirit was born.
I was in an ecumenical clergy group with George Kane, and he was just as much fun as this story suggests.
I wonder what kind of name he would have thought of for us?
May 15th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Keith and I gave our kids substantial names, old-fashioned, unique, British-sounding names that actually translate into the phrases “gift of God” and “faithful to God.”
I know people thought we were nuts when we not only named our babies in this fashion, but actually called them by those hefty names when they were infants. We wanted names with import, meaning, and substance, names that made them distinctive, names they would be challenged by, names that they would not grow out of, but grow into.
A name like The Church of the Holy Spirit is like those names — distinctive, meaningful, substantial. For our church it would be an incredibly challenging name to have because we would have to do a tremendous amount of growing before it would fit.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Ah, but isn’t there something to “growing into” a name, or “growing up” to a name? For instance, you and Keith want your children to live up to the names they have, and you want to help them do that.
And I confess that, although my parents may not have been so thoughtful in giving me the name Lewis, it made a difference to me and to the way I thought of myself when I learned that it meant “famous warrior” or “renowned fighter.”
Can the same thing apply to a church? Could we be called “The Church of the Holy Spirit” and then be the church of the Holy Spirit? Not that every Church of Christ has done all it could to live up to that name….
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Yes, of course! That’s what I was trying to imply, — that it can apply to a congregation — but I see now that it might be read as “Nah, don’t do that — too challenging to grow into such a name.” And, yes, we deliberately encourage our kids to grow into their names by making sure they know what their names mean, why they’ve been named that, and how we see them reflecting those qualities now and in the future.
Actually I see it as the kind of challenge we ought to put in front of our eyes. Having that kind of church name would make us more aware of whose we are and perhaps more sensitive to what he is doing in/among/around us. It’s unlikely that such a change would happen overnight, but who knows? With God, all things are possible, and taking such a radical (hm, it’s really not all that radical; people change their names all the time) step is as serious as a prayer in letting God know, “Hey, we really mean it. We wanna be like that.” God has been known to act in response to a prayer.
As one of my favorite quotes goes, “A man’s reach [effort towards a challenging goal] should exceed his grasp [his ability to attain or accomplish it], or what’s a heaven for?” — Robert Browning, in “Andrea del Sarto,” referring to the artistic challenge of painting accurately.
I believe that with the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit, we could be the church of the Holy Spirit, and I’m certain we could do a LOT more to live up to that name.